Will The WWE Championship Be On The Line In The ‘House Of Horrors’ Match?

On Sunday, April 30, SmackDown’s Randy Orton will go one on one with Raw’s Bray Wyatt in a House of Horrors match, and even though we’re only one week away from the match, we still have no idea what a House of Horrors match involves. But, we know what it won’t involve — the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

According to Cageside Seats, the match between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt at Payback will be a non-title match, even though Orton is currently the WWE Champion.

Brock Lesnar, who is the current Universal Champion, isn’t scheduled to appear at the Payback show. So, some thought that WWE was adding Orton vs. Wyatt as a WWE Championship match in order to make up for the fact that Raw’s main champion won’t be on the show. But, it appears that isn’t the case. Furthermore, it doesn’t even look like the Orton vs. Wyatt match will be the show’s main event, as Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns will likely close out the show.

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Whether he wins or loses, Randy Orton will walk out of the House of Horrors match with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, and he’ll then begin to build to his next title defense against Jinder Mahal, who earned a title shot on Tuesday’s SmackDown. So don’t be surprised if we see Jinder cost Orton his match against Wyatt at Payback.

It also looks like Jinder vs. Orton will be a one-time deal, and that the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion will move onto feuding with either AJ Styles or Kevin Owens following next month’s show in Chicago.

As for what Wyatt will be doing following his match with Randy Orton, well, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, he’ll begin a feud with Finn Balor.

“So the one thing is, it looks like they’re going to do, coming out of [the House of Horrors], Finn Balor and Bray Wyatt are gonna be doing a program. They pretty much almost outright said it when Balor was wrestling that there’s something going on with him. It’s new, and it may be very good.”

Also according to the Observer, WWE originally planned on having Bray Wyatt stay on SmackDown, while AJ Styles was going to move to Raw. But, plans changed, and WWE decided to send Bray over to Raw, and leave AJ on SmackDown.

The Payback show will feature two brand vs. brand matches, as Raw’s Chris Jericho will challenge SmackDown’s Kevin Owens for the United States Championship, where the winner, which will presumably be Owens, will be a part of the blue brand. The other brand vs. brand match is, of course, Orton vs. Wyatt.

[Image by WWE]

Unless something changes on Monday or Tuesday, the match between Wyatt and Orton will remain a non-title match, and they’ll go back to their respective brands following next Sunday’s show.

We don’t really know how long Orton’s title reign will last, but we do know that he’s not losing it anytime soon, unless WWE hits us with a curve ball at Backlash, and Jinder Mahal walks out of the show as champion.

As previously mentioned, Orton will likely feud with either AJ Styles or Kevin Owens coming out of next month’s pay-per-view in Chicago, which may lead to a title match at SummerSlam in August. In fact, there’s a strong possibility that WWE will do Orton vs. Styles for the WWE Championship at their biggest event of the summer, which could end up being where Orton loses the title.

For now though, we’re stuck with Orton vs. Wyatt, then Orton vs. Jinder, which should be interesting to say the least.